


The Trouble with Babysitting

by WakeUpDreaming



Category: Scorpion (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Happy babysits Ralph, Post 2x07, The garage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 14:23:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5167106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WakeUpDreaming/pseuds/WakeUpDreaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of 2x07, Paige has a minor crisis and Happy watches Ralph. What Happy doesn't expect, however, is to find out that the team was there for her comedy set.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Trouble with Babysitting

The garage is silent. It is serene. It is just what Happy wants right now.

There’s nothing she wants more right now than to be alone, to fall into her work and think about nothing but the parts in front of her.

Within twenty minutes of settling in she hears someone saying, “Anybody here?”

Happy looks up from where she’s inspecting a faulty part on her work bench. “No,” she calls back.

Paige walks in and dumps her purse on the couch, looking completely frazzled. “Can you watch Ralph?” she asks. “We have a problem.”

“What kind of problem?” Happy asks, hopping down. She ruffles Ralph’s hair and he grins up at her. “Hey, kiddo.”

“My heat is out. So when I called the heating company, they were trying to tell me that I hadn’t paid for months, which is ridiculous, but the phone call cut out just as we were going into the files. So now I’ve decided I just need to go down there and – and yell at them until they do their job.”

“That’s always worked for us,” Happy says, grinning. “The kid and I will have fun together, won’t we, Ralph?”

“Can I take apart Mom’s –”

Happy puts her hand over Ralph’s mouth. “Nope,” Happy says. “We said we weren’t talking about that.”

Paige looks between the two of them and pulls out every electronic in her purse, inspecting them carefully. “I’m watching you two,” she says, “I may not be here, but don’t doubt for a second that I’ve got my eye on you.”

Ralph nods underneath Happy’s hand. He mumbles something underneath it.

“Oh, sorry,” Happy says. “Try that again, bud?”

“I said, ‘bye, Mom.’” Ralph says. “And don’t forget your purse this time.”

Paige smiles and kisses him on the forehead. “Don’t let Happy get you into trouble,” Paige jokingly scolds. “Thanks so much, Happy.”

Ralph and Happy nod and Paige takes off.

“Are we ever going to tell her how we took her car apart?” Ralph asks. “Because I feel like she might want to know.”

“I told you,” Happy says, “Christmas. By then she’ll have realized how great her mileage is all of a sudden. And boom! Messing with her car is a supportive and helpful gift instead of annoying tinkering.”

Ralph stares at her for a few minutes. “I’m not sure that’s how it works,” he says warily.

“Sure it is, kid,” Happy says. “Now what do you want to do?”

Ralph considers it for a moment. “Can we look at Walter’s rocket?”

“Only if we want to be murdered,” Happy says cheerily.

“I don’t want to be murdered,” Ralph says.

“Good call,” Happy says. “Motorcycle?”

“Motorcycle.”

They work in silence for a good hour and a half except for some questions and answers they exchange. Ralph’s an incredibly intuitive mechanic – even if Happy knows he’s going into robotics and biological engineering (she can tell these things), she still wants to get him a little bit indoctrinated in the world of engines and machines before he goes off to the fancier stuff.

Eventually Happy’s covered in enough grease and dirt that every time she tries to wipe it off her face it smears more across her cheeks. She looks over at Ralph. He looks like he just took a bath in a chimney.

“Alright, bud, we need take a break to get ourselves cleaned up.”

“But we’re not done!” Ralph complains. He holds up a wrench. “I haven’t even gotten to use this one yet!” He’s fighting back a smile. “And I’ve used every other wrench on the planet.”

Happy laughs. “And now you’re making jokes. Toby’s had a terrible influence on you.”

“You’re the one who went to a comedy club.”

Happy stares at him. “What was that?”

Ralph’s eyes go wide. For as brilliant as he is, the kid can’t keep a secret or tell a lie for the life of him. It’s endearing yet frustrating. “What was what?” he says, not meeting her eyes.

“How do you – did they…?” Happy drops her head back onto the creeper with a thunk. “That explains a lot.”

“I wasn’t there!” Ralph blurts out. “Just – everyone else.”

Happy groans and rubs her hands over her face before realizing exactly what she was doing.

She hears Ralph giggle. “What?”

“You look like a zebra,” Ralph manages to say through the giggles. “You – you’re all stripey.”

Happy wheels herself out from under the car, pulling Ralph’s creeper behind her. “You don’t look all that clean yourself, kiddo,” Happy says. “Go wash up. Do you know –”

“I’m ten years old!” Ralph says. “I’m not a baby. I know where all the soap is.” He giggles again. “Zebra.”

Happy has to laugh herself as she hands Ralph a towel. With Ralph in the only bathroom, Happy settles for taking care of the mess of grease she’s become at the kitchen sink. She pulls her shirt off over her head and takes a look at herself. The kid was right. She does look a little bit like a zebra with the way her fingertips streaked grease down her cheeks. Somehow she even managed to smear a grey stripe across her blue and grey bra. She rubs at it with soap and water with success – if she can save this, she can save the shirt.

As she borrows (steals – she should probably buy a new one) Paige’s face wash that Happy will never admit to liking the smell of, Happy thinks about when exactly the team had seen her at the comedy club. The only real options are when Chet introduced her to everyone and had her say a joke, or when she actually had her routine down and bombed so hard that she was pretty sure she had died up on the stage.

Neither was a great option.

She jumps about a foot in the air when she hears the door close, and suddenly feels a little enraged. The person walking in is a person who followed her to the club. And for some reason she’s pissed about it. Who gave them the right to come see her at the comedy club? And how the heck did they know about it?

“Alright, I have a very important question for you, and that question is what the hell is wrong with you?” Happy asks, turning toward the door. Toby’s standing there, looking confused.

“Long term childhood trauma,” Toby offers. “Is there any context to that question, or…?”

“You,” says Happy, putting her shirt down and pointing at Toby, “came to my comedy show.”

Toby, it should be noted, should be a better liar than he is. Nobody else can tell when he’s lying, he claims, but to Happy it’s clear as day when his pants are on fire. “I don’t know –”

“Do not try that,” Happy demands. “I know you were there. Somebody told Ralph, who can’t keep a secret for the life of him.”

Toby winces. “We didn’t – I thought –”

“Clearly you thought wrong,” Happy says. “What were you thinking?”

Toby looks like he’s either about to throw up or throw something. “Pleading the fifth?”

“This isn’t court,” Happy says. “No law about self-incrimination when you don’t tell me you’re following me around all the time.”

“This was one time,” Toby says, raising his hands in defense. “I swear. The point was to,” he drops his hands. “You’re going to kill me.”

“Probably,” Happy agrees. “Keep talking. I want to see if you can dig yourself out of this hole.”

He takes a deep breath and Happy has the sudden realization that this is about to get real deep real fast. She was so not prepared for this. It seems like Toby forces himself to meet her eyes when he says, “I thought you and Chet were together.”

Happy stares at him. “You what?”

“Everybody misinterpreted what was going on,” Toby says, “and I did, too. So I figured I could get over you if I just…” He trails off, steadying himself. “I thought that if I saw the two of you together and if you were happy, I could move on.”

“You thought I was dating Chet?” Happy asks incredulously. “He’s married with a first grade kid. She looks just like him.”

“I know that now,” Toby says, “and I –”

“You know that?” Happy asks, staring at him.

Toby nods. “Yeah, it was part of Chet’s bit.”

“Oh, my god,” Happy says. “Chet did the set about his kid the night of my…” She trails off, feeling her face heat up red. “Oh my god.”

Toby offers a smile. “Sly thought you were hilarious.”

“I am hilarious.”

Toby, to his credit, tries to keep a straight face. “At times.” But the lighthearted smile fades from his face and suddenly he looks anxious, uncomfortable, and Happy knows why. If she wanted to, she could ignore everything he’d said about moving on. They could move past it and pretend that whole thing never happened. Could pretend that she never heard that Toby was ready to let her go if she was happy with someone else. She could pretend that she was happy right now, the way things are.

But she’s not happy with someone else. And she suddenly realizes she could be so much happier.

“Does this mean you moved on?” Happy asks.

Toby looks like someone just hit him in the stomach. “What?”

“I’m not with Chet,” she says definitely, “and you said that if you saw me happy with him you’d move on.”

“I did say that,” Toby says, still looking uncertain of the situation.

Happy steps toward him. “So?”

“So what?”

She takes another step toward him. “Have you moved on?” Her heart is racing and she has no idea why she’s doing it. All she knows is that she’s doing this and she’s done running. She’s done hurting and she’s done hiding.

She just wants an answer.

Toby’s fingers twitch in her direction, like he’s fighting his urge to reach out to her. “No,” Toby says, the honesty burning through her. The way he’s looking at her is intense, almost too much. But if she can survive getting no laughs at the comedy show, she can survive this. “I’m not.”

“So do something about it,” Happy says. There’s a challenge in her voice, and she’s still not sure what she’s doing, but she’s not turning back down.

Toby, instead of doing something, just stares at her. “Are you sure?” he asks. “I don’t want you to do anything –”

“For the love of –” Happy reaches up and pulls him to her, kissing her the way she’d kissed him the first time. It takes a second for him to register the action, but then he wraps his arms around her back. And she’s suddenly acutely aware that they had this entire conversation when she was standing there in her bra. And he didn’t make a single crack about it.

Maybe he has grown up a little bit.

She lets go of his shirt and wraps her arms around him, settling a hand at the base of his neck. He moans a little, a sound that send a flare throughout Happy’s body, when she pulls gently at his hair, and she presses herself closer to him. She can’t process anything right now, but she likes it – she doesn’t want to think about anything right now. She just wants to feel and, oh god, is she feeling right now. She lets a hand drift down to Toby’s back, pushing his shirt up with her fingertips.

“Do you guys need a babysitter or something?”

They break apart and Happy stares at Ralph. Poor, poor Ralph. “Seriously,” he says, slapping his hands over his eyes, “I’m gone for twenty minutes and you guys are…” He wrinkles his nose. “You guys have a lot of stuff to work out. I’m going to go do homework.”

Toby silently pulls off his jacket and gives it to Happy, who puts it on and zips it up. It’s comically huge on her – the sleeves reaching to her knees.

“I need a shirt.”

“You need a shower,” Toby corrects. He holds up his hands. They’re streaked with black. “You’re covered in grease.”

“Zebra!” shouts Ralph from the couch.

Toby stares at Happy. “What the…?”

“My face was streaked with grease and I looked like a zebra,” Happy says under her breath, “we were working on the car and motorcycle for more than an hour.”

Toby smiles at her. “Go get cleaned up,” he says, “and put on a shirt so I don’t spontaneously combust.”

Happy grins. “I was wondering when you were going to bring that up.”

“You looked like you were going to kill me from my first step in here,” Toby says. “I wasn’t going to risk anything.”

Happy pulls off the jacket and jumps into the shower, her heart pounding as she works through whatever the hell just happened. She feels warm and wonderful and content as she recalls the way Toby’s lips felt on hers, and she suddenly realizes she’d do anything to feel that way again. She has to pull herself out of the memories to get the showering done – her brain is somewhere else completely.

When she comes out of the shower, she sees Toby with his forehead on the arm of the couch and Ralph looking a little startled.

“What happened?” Happy asks, adjusting her shirt. “Why do you both look – like that?”

As she rounds the corner she sees Paige and Sly looking dangerously giddy.

“Have a nice day, zebra?” Paige asks, doing a terrible job of not laughing.

“Hah, hah,” says Happy, “you told them about my zebra face. Hilarious.”

Sly grins. “Also about your hanky panky in the kitchen.” He winks, the gesture ridiculous. “Glad to see you found a shirt.”

Happy would feel more mortified if she wasn’t secretly elated about the turn of events. She looks at Ralph and Toby. “You two,” she says, “are the worst liars on the planet.”

“We didn’t lie!” says Ralph. “We just – couldn’t keep a secret.”

“You couldn’t keep a secret,” says Toby. “I was doing just fine.”

“Hey Happy,” Sly says, “what happened with your book on anti-gravity?”

“I hate all of you,” Happy deadpans as the rest of them crack up.

**Author's Note:**

> *drops head into hands* I'M JUST SO IN LOVE WITH THE TWO OF THESE NERDS


End file.
